


Happen Again

by tuesday



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Future Fic, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-25 23:39:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17734859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: The plan was simple: complete avoidance.  Don't think about it, don't talk about, don't let it happen again.





	Happen Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamkist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamkist/gifts).



> Written as a treat for the prompt, "Tony is stressed and pushed to the limit. He does something he wants to do even though he shouldn't," though I took a loose approach to it. Thanks for the chance to play in this sandbox!
> 
> Thank you to jf4m for the help betaing this and to duckmoles for being my sounding board!
> 
> I wrote up what (I hope) is a full set of warnings and advisories at the end, but I want to mention here that a) there's some minor Tony/other characters (past Tony/Pepper, brief Tony/OFC/OMC that doesn't go anywhere) and b) this leans really hard into Tony feeling guilty over the age gap and Peter/Tony being the thing Tony really wants to do and thinks he shouldn't.

Tony was self-aware enough to know when he was spiraling. He was somewhere between a tailspin and circling the drain right now, and none of his usual coping methods were working. It used to help to think about Pepper, but that was just another source of pain these days. Sometimes it helped to call Rhodey, but he was busy. JARVIS was gone, and FRIDAY just didn't have the same knack for pulling him out of it. Work was usually a welcome distraction, but he couldn't focus. Alcohol was a minor balm, but he tried not to use it as a comfort too often. He didn't have a problem with it, but he was also self-aware enough to realize that he could if he let himself.

Tony crumpled the latest holo design and threw it in the digital trash. This wasn't working. He put his head in his hands and pulled at his hair. If he were still in his twenties, this would be where he went out, got trashed, and woke up with one or more strangers in his bed in the morning. As he was nearly fifty, he got up, drank some water, and tried to get his head back in the game.

Twenty minutes later, he was feeling no better for it. Fuck it. Maybe in his twenties, all he had to contend with was grief, self-loathing, and loneliness, but his admittedly horrible coping methods then had served him well. Maybe they could take care of those problems, even if they couldn't touch the PTSD or anxiety or continent-spanning guilt and self-recrimination.

It was a Friday night in New York, and he was Tony Stark. A little thing like the approach of a certain terrible first year anniversary wasn't going to stop the elite from living it up; hell, that probably made them all the more desperate to prove they were alive. There were any number of parties being thrown by glittering socialites who'd be pleased to have him—at their party or otherwise. Tony chose one at random. It had plenty of pretty young things to bat their eyelashes at him and plenty more to drink.

Tony enjoyed both as much as he could when it felt like everything was at a remove, everything and everyone distant and unable to touch him, not even when it was a glass at his lips or a tongue in his mouth. He came back to himself a little bit when he realized the woman in his arms had red hair and the young man at his back had pretty brown eyes that were just the right (wrong) shade.

"I think," Tony said carefully, "that I might be a bit too fucked up for this."

The young man had his hands down Tony's pants, but he'd gone from almost painfully hard to soft. He felt a little like he was going to throw up. The redhead frowned. "I didn't think you'd had that much to drink."

Tony laughed without humor and extricated himself from their grasping hands. "I have definitely had too much."

He left them in one of their host's many guest bedrooms. They could carry on without him if they liked, but he needed to not be there.

—

He tried not to think about it. Not either of them, not any of it. Things had turned out surprisingly well for half the universe's sentient population having temporarily turned to dust. Tony had thought he'd die any number of times during the whole ordeal, that even if he made it, he'd never see home again.

He'd made it. He was alive. He was on Earth, and everyone who'd been dusted was whole again. What did the rest of it matter in the face of all that?

—

(When he'd gotten back to Earth, Pepper had said, "I can't—I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry." The click of her heels echoed in Tony's ears long after she was gone. She wasn't there, and in addition to all the pain of it, it was one less buffer between Tony and his own terrible decisions all these months later.

Peter's mouth had been soft and wet against Tony's own, his fingers bruising against Tony's biceps, and his eyes devastated when Tony ripped himself away.

The workshop at the Compound was cold and lonely even with three friendly, helpful 'bots and FRIDAY a voice command away, but at least there was no one Tony could damage so badly he couldn't fix them held within its walls.)

—

Tony didn't have an alcohol problem, but just this once, he let himself drink until he drowned out everything else, until he was sprawled across the concrete floor of his workshop with DUM-E bumping his wheels against Tony's feet in a way Tony could pretend showed concern and wasn't another glitch in his code Tony had never had the heart to remove.

"Good boy," Tony slurred and patted DUM-E's arm when he leaned in close.

"That really doesn't look comfortable." That was Rhodey. Who had called Rhodey? Who had let him in? "No one called me. I came in to do paperwork and saw your light was on. If you didn't want me to come in, you shouldn't have given me all the codes." Rhodey got an arm under Tony's shoulders. "C'mon, buddy, up. Let's get you into bed."

Tony didn't so much lean on Rhodey as let him take his entire weight. He put his face in Rhodey's neck. "Why didn't we ever—?"

Rhodey huffed a laugh. "Are we doing this again? You know why. You're a disaster, and I love you, but I've known you since you were fourteen years old."

"I've known Peter since he was fifteen," Tony said quietly.

Rhodey didn't say anything as they navigated the halls. It was only once he'd gotten Tony into the room he used whenever he crashed at the Compound and laid out on the bed that he said, "You can't keep doing this to yourself."

Tony smiled tiredly. "What else can I do?"

Rhodey patted Tony's shoulder. "Get some sleep."

—

Tony wasn't in his twenties anymore. The hangover was horrendous.

He dragged himself to the kitchen in search of coffee and with the knowledge he should probably make himself eat something. It was a Saturday, so some of the weekenders were there. Tony didn't really process who until he was seated directly across from Peter, mug in hand, trying not to cry from all the natural daylight streaming in through the windows. Then he was trying not to cry for another reason. Tony's avoidance plans would have gone a lot better if he hadn't gotten so drunk last night that he forgot why he was avoiding the common areas this morning.

"Hi, Mr. Stark," Peter said softly like Tony hadn't had his tongue down his throat less than 24 hours ago before literally fleeing into the night.

Tony should probably say something. Tony needed to say something.

One of the new guys dropped a bowl of cereal on the table and said, "Happy Snappening, everyone. Congrats on no longer being dust."

"That's inappropriate," Tony said, but he couldn't really talk, because he was staring at Peter's mouth. His lips had gone from pursed with hurt to a gentle curve, a small, secret smile. Tony managed to wrench his gaze away, only to make the mistake of meeting Peter's eyes. There was something dangerously like hope blooming in them. "I'm going to—go. Do things. Important things elsewhere."

Tony stole the carafe and didn't look back.

—

The plan was simple: complete avoidance. Don't think about it, don't talk about, don't let it happen again.

He was already falling down on the first. He couldn't stop replaying the small noise Peter had made as Tony had kissed him and which he'd greedily swallowed down, couldn't stop the sense memory of Peter's mouth opening up for him and the wet slide of his tongue, couldn't help but linger on how solid and warm Peter's body had been under his hands. It was certainly much more pleasant to remember than Peter's hand outstretched as Tony ran away.

Tony barged into Rhodey's office. "Give me something to do."

"Good morning, Tony. How are you? It's nice to see you, too." Rhodey put down his tablet on a stack of papers. "You're welcome for the help last night."

"Good morning, terrible, very, and thank you." Tony made grabby hands. "Please. There has to be more paperwork you can pawn off on me or a special project or something that needs doing."

Rhodey shook his head. "If you think I'm going to let you at anything important in your current state, you obviously don't remember college that well."

Tony did remember. Rhodey had literally sat on him once. "If I don't find something else to do today, I'm almost certainly going to kiss Peter again."

Rhodey's eyes widened. "Again?"

There went not talking about it. Tony tried to course correct. "I don't want to talk about it."

Rhodey didn't listen any more than Tony was able to follow through. " _That's_ why you were freaking out last night?"

"Right. This was a mistake. I'll find something for SI." Tony turned on his heel, but Rhodey followed him, caught him by the elbow, and ushered him back into the office.

Rhodey closed the door behind them, then pushed Tony gently into one of the two visitor chairs. "Sit." Rhodey perched on his own desk. "Talk. Tell me what's going on with you."

Tony rubbed a hand against his beard, trying not to think about the friction burn it had left on Peter's face. "I—" He couldn't get the words out. Rhodey waited patiently. Tony made a strangled sound of frustration. He said, though it provided no new information, "I kissed Peter."

"Yeah, I got that. Is this a guilt thing? Just because the kid has a crush on you doesn't mean you have to—"

Tony cut Rhodey off. " _I wanted to_." Softer, "I wanted to."

"Huh." Rhodey leaned back. "So it is a guilt thing, but in a different way." Rhodey stood. "I don't have anything for you specifically, but I dinged the War Machine in the last set of training exercises if you wanted to waste the time buffing that out."

"That's it? You're not—you don't have anything else to say?"

"What do you want me to say? He's eighteen. You're probably beating yourself up more over that than I'm judging you for it."

"But you are judging me."

Rhodey rolled his eyes. "I have seen you sleep with a lot of eighteen year olds over the years, Tony. At least you know this one's name." Rhodey crossed behind his desk. "I'm not going to be the whip you beat yourself with today. I have too much to do. If you want to self-flagellate, do it somewhere else."

Tony went to give Rhodey's armor a full work-up.

—

There was only one thing left to do: don't let it happen again.

That didn't work out so well, either.

—

All it took was Peter in the workshop, having brought Tony a late lunch in the form of a couple turkey sandwiches—because Tony had remembered to avoid the common areas this time and apparently people had noticed he hadn't eaten—and Tony couldn't keep his hands to himself, couldn't help brushing their fingers together as he accepted the plate, couldn't avoid reaching back out after he put down the plate on the closest surface to touch Peter's hands, his wrists, his shoulders. For his part, Peter went straight for the throat, spreading his hands across the sides of Tony's neck and pulling him in.

"This is a bad idea," Tony said, and then they were kissing, hungry and desperate and messy. They bumped noses. Peter used too much tongue. At one point, he licked Tony's jaw, which Tony firmly felt should not have been sexy. Peter bit Tony's lip, and it wasn't so much a pleasant nip as actually kind of painful.

It was ridiculous how much Tony enjoyed it. It hurt how much he wanted it, every awkward second of it. It was—it shouldn't have been good. Peter kissed like he thought it would be over at any second and he needed to fit in everything he felt now, now, now. Tony should be pulling back, slowing them down, putting a stop to it. Instead, he set his teeth in the side of Peter's neck and did his best to leave a mark.

Peter picked Tony up and dropped him on the workbench. Peter's hands went for his belt, and Tony stopped him, but that was as far as his self-control extended. He spread his legs and pulled Peter by his belt loops until they were grinding against each other. He imagined telling Rhodey, _Sure, I kissed him and let him thrust against me until we both came in our pants, but no one took their clothes off._

"We should—we should stop," Tony said, closing his eyes as Peter moved just right.

"You should let me take your pants off," Peter said.

"Fuck." Tony let his head loll back as Peter returned the favor and sucked hard on his throat. "Yeah, okay."

His imaginary justification became, _Sure, I let him take my pants off, but at least I didn't have to do laundry._

Peter didn't hesitate, fumbling Tony's pants open and then his own. It was—oh, it was so much worse. It was so much better. Peter was leaking pre-come, and it was a little bit wet where they slid against each other. There was nothing of elegance or grace in how Peter rutted against him, in the frantic little bitten off sounds Peter made as his dick dragged against Tony's own.

Tony let out a litany of curses. He was trapped against the bench, thighs bracketing Peter's hips, pants tangled around his ankles. He had no leverage, no option but to sit there and take it, whatever Peter gave him. It was too much. _It was too much_. Peter kissed him again, and Tony let go.

At that point, come on his thighs and somehow having gotten on Peter's t-shirt, Tony didn't see the point in holding back. "Hang on, stop a second." It was strange how easy that was to say now that he was determined to see this all the way through. Peter stopped, because one of them had self-control. Tony slid off the bench and onto his knees. "Let me know if there's something you do or don't like."

The sound Peter made at Tony's mouth on him wasn't bitten back, was a full-throated moan. Tony tried not to wonder whether this was his first blowjob, if this was his first experience with anything but his own hand. Instead, he concentrated on making it good. He kissed the tip to start, a small gesture of affection he couldn't help. He stroked the silky length of it with the tips of his fingers. Then, because he couldn't help himself, because this had only started because Tony Stark had zero capacity to tell himself no, he swallowed the whole thing down in one go.

Peter's hands went into Tony's hair, and no one had taught him not to pull. Tony was a bit too busy to correct that, trying to keep his throat relaxed and not embarrass himself by choking to death on a teenager's dick. He could see the headlines now. It would be one hell of an obituary. Worth it, though, to hear the noises Peter was making, the groans and sighs and moans on the edge of a sob. Worth it to be the one to pull them out of him one bob of his head at a time. Peter had zero chill, hips twitching and rolling, tugging at Tony's hair whenever he did something Peter particularly liked, panting with it at the end.

"I can't—I think I'm—" Peter gasped out, trying to pull away, and Tony got a mouthful of semen and caught the rest on his face.

Tony felt less bad about getting his own all over Peter's shirt. It was—he touched to be sure—even in his hair. Tony rasped out, "I would have preferred to swallow."

Peter earned zero points with Tony when he put his hand to his mouth and started laughing.

—

They should have talked about it. Instead, Peter stripped out of his shirt and gave it to Tony to clean his face, then they shared the sandwiches sitting on the workshop floor.

Tony thought, _This was a mistake._

Tony thought, _We shouldn't do this again._

Tony thought, _I only just got this, but I have no idea how to let it go._

Tony said, "Hey, you've got a bit of—" and leaned forward to lick the mustard off the corner of Peter's mouth.

"I have patrol tonight," Peter said. He stretched, the motion doing interested things to his abdominal muscles. "I'll see you later?"

"Sure," Tony absently agreed.

Shirtless, Peter wandered out of the workshop. Tony was left with an empty plate, a dirty shirt, and traces of come in his hair. He put his head on his knees and tried not to scream. That, he was mostly able to manage. At least he kept it all internal.

—

He grabbed a shower and trooped back into Rhodey's office. Rhodey wasn't there. Eventually, Tony found him in the observation lounge overlooking the outdoor obstacle course. Rhodey looked up and nodded, then went back to watching the new kids playing King of the Mountain on what amounted to a glorified jungle gym.

"I kissed Peter again," Tony said.

"Mm." Rhodey made a note as someone got kicked in the face.

"On the dick this time."

Rhodey choked on his own spit. Tony tried and failed not to feel satisfaction at that. "How many times do we have to talk about oversharing?"

"At least one more." Tony winced as someone came soaring toward the window, not under her own power. He was pretty sure she wasn't the one who could fly. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

"That's a first." Rhodey's tone said that it absolutely was not a first.

"A year ago today, he died in my arms." Tony rubbed at the latest version of the arc reactor, a tiny glowing chestplate that powered his nanotech armor instead of a magnet protecting his heart. "How do you—how do you get over that?"

" _You_ don't. You wallow or you avoid, no middle ground." Rhodey made another note. "But someone better at dealing with things acknowledges you brought him back and maybe makes an appointment with our on-call therapist. We hired her for a reason."

"Would you even recognize me if I were emotionally well-adjusted?"

"You're not your damage, Tony," Rhodey said quietly.

They watched the rest of the battle in silence.

—

Tony spent the night at the Compound again. He told himself it was because he wanted to be close to the workshop if he couldn't sleep, though the whole reason he'd separated where he lived from where he worked was to avoid working through the night, and if he were truly desperate, he always had various tools and 3D imaging and holographics at home—or what passed for home these days. He told himself that, but when he heard the knock at his door, he knew it was a lie. Tonight's nighttime visitor wasn't Rhodey come to tuck him in.

Peter hovered at the threshold. "Is it okay if—?"

Tony pulled him into the room, then into his bed. It was just as fumbling and awkward as the last time, only this time they had condoms and lube, and Tony didn't bruise his knees on a concrete floor. Peter tried to give Tony a blowjob, and apparently he'd skipped the lecture about teeth. They opened Tony up together, Peter sliding a finger in Tony's ass alongside two of Tony's own, which was really nice actually, intimate and stimulating, but Peter lasted less than a minute once he got Tony on his back. The condom broke, and if Tony hadn't already failed himself for (un)safe sex in the workshop earlier, he'd definitely be doing so now, with Peter's come leaking out of his ass.

"Um." Peter's face was bright red. "Sorry?"

"You'll get better at it," Tony reassured him. The worst part was Tony was still hard, painfully, achingly so.

Tony thought about explaining to Rhodey's horrified face, _I let him fuck me, but at least I didn't put my dick up his ass._

He decided imaginary Rhodey probably wouldn't be any more impressed with that than Tony was. Tony said, "You up for experiencing that from the other side?"

Peter was very up for it. A few minutes in, and he was rising to the occasion. Tony thought, _He's eighteen_ , and for once it wasn't self-castigation, but instead an almost admiring realization.

Peter reached for his own erection, and Tony gently slapped his hand away. Between ragged inhalations of breath, Tony said, "Consider this: you could save that for me. Pretty sure you'll last longer this time."

It was a good theory. They switched again. In practice, it didn't really pan out. This, right here, was why Tony preferred his partners had experience. At least the condom stayed intact this time, though using it felt a little like locking the barn door when the horses were running around outside and the farm itself was on fire. Peter's expression indicated he was seriously considering expiring out of sheer embarrassment.

Anyone else, Tony would've thrown out of bed the moment they caught his foreskin on their teeth. He definitely wouldn't have given them a second chance at playing Minuteman. Tony didn't know what Peter was still doing there. (He knew exactly what Peter was still doing there.) Tony said, "We'll work on it."

"Can I, um, try sucking your dick again?" It was all worth it for those words out of Peter's mouth.

"No teeth," Tony emphasized.

 _This_ second attempt showed a lot of improvement. Of course, it also included Peter choking himself when he tried to take Tony too far too fast and spending a good five minutes—longer than the total time he'd spent fucking Tony—trying and failing to catch his breath. When he immediately went for Tony's dick again like he hadn't learned a single thing about slowing down, Tony blocked him with a palm to the forehead.

Tony sighed. "How about you stay there, just like that, and let me come on your face?"

"There has to be something I can do for you."

"And you're doing it. Close your eyes. Part your lips a little. Tilt your head back. Yes. Just like that. You're perfect." His dick a few inches from Peter's mouth, close enough to tantalize, but safe from those teeth, working himself just the way he liked it, Tony barely lasted longer than Peter had the moment he got his dick in Tony's ass. "You're perfect," Tony repeated as he came all over Peter's face.

—

If there were a time and a place for talking about it, it probably wasn't while Tony was helping wash his own come out of Peter's eyelashes.

 _We fucked each other, and I came on his face, but we didn't sleep-sleep together,_ Tony tried in the safety of his thoughts.

Though it felt infinitely more dangerous than his dick in Peter's mouth, Tony said, "Want to spend the night?"

"Can I use your shower first?" Peter asked.

"You can have whatever you want," Tony promised. The worst part was, he meant it.

—

They didn't talk about it. It kept happening. Tony had no capacity for telling himself no and even less for refusing Peter.

Peter did get better at it.

—

The anniversary of the Unsnappening, as some of the kids were calling it, Tony was holed up in his workshop again. When Peter came in and locked the door behind him, Tony put his project down. He didn’t get up, but he did raise his chin to accept a kiss. When Peter went to deepen it, Tony pushed him back.

"I was thinking—" Tony swallowed. "I was thinking we could try something a bit different tonight if you're up for it."

Peter stroked Tony's cheek. "What did you have in mind?"

There were moments Tony had felt more vulnerable, like when he'd had Pepper's hand in his chest. There were times hope had cut this deep, like the instant before the dust had coalesced into Peter's face. It made no sense for his heart to race, for his breath to stutter in his lungs, for his palms to prickle with the first hints of sweat as he said, "How would you feel about going on an actual date?"

"Haven't we been doing that?" Peter asked. He looked confused.

Tony was a genuinely awful person. "You could say that." Tony absolutely would not say that. "But I was thinking the sort of date you could tell your kids about if you didn't want them to know you met on Grindr."

Peter smiled. "We didn't meet on Grindr, but yeah. Okay. We can go out if you want."

Tony had to know, "But would that make you happy?"

"Tony." Peter kissed him, soft, sweet, devastatingly gentle. "You make me happy."

Tony thought he could live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/warnings/advisories: Past Tony/Pepper (and lingering feelings), brief Tony/OFC/OMC. This leans hard into the Tony/Peter age gap, as well as the life experience gap, and Tony has a lot of negative feelings about that. Mental health issues being coped with poorly. References to lots of temporary character deaths (Infinity Wars and it being fixed). Tony claims he doesn’t have an alcohol problem, but he maybe has at least a little bit of an alcohol problem. Bad sex, though of the “everyone is trying their best, okay” variety. Some unsafe sexual practices. Implied brief mismatch of expectations for what a relationship is and where it’s going. Training-level violence that isn’t focused on.


End file.
